Lasers
by Ramona Bandicoot
Summary: Jumping through laser grids are simple. Getting out of an awkward position while surrounded by lasers...not so easy. -oneshot-


**Disclaimer:** I don't own any Sly Cooper characters; they belong to Sucker Punch Productions.

**Claimer:** I own all of my original characters.

Another oneshot. I want to thank "ForeverFreelancer" for the story idea. So, I hope you like it! And then on a random note, I did finally get a halfway decent picture of Ramona drawn out so I might post it…I'm not really sure yet. Anyway, please read and review and let me know what you think! Thanks!

Lasers

"Sly, Sly, are you inside yet?" Bentley's voice rang though my earpiece as I entered through a skylight of the museum. My feet touched the ground softly and I twirled my cane in my paws.

"Just touched down," I muttered to the turtle at our hideout, "You have the security lasers down yet?"

"I'm working on it right now. Just go down the hallway to your left and they should be down in a matter of minutes. But be careful! If you come across anymore _don't_ touch them! Even the brush of your tail isn't good and you're going to smell like singed tail fur for a week."

"Thanks, I'll keep that in mind." We disconnected and I started down the hallway. It was quiet and dark inside the museum and only a few security lights were on. I silently trotted down the hallway and had that feeling that I was being watched. I glanced up to a display case and felt a smile sneak across my muzzle. A small lump could barely be seen at the top and I'd been doing this long enough to know who it was. Since my eyes were used to seeing in the dark, I could make out the form behind the metal ornamental casing surrounding the glass. It blended perfectly in the shadows, but I could still see the small lump of fur.

"You know, Ms. Bandicoot," I called up to the form on the case, "if I hadn't been doing this my whole life, you might have been able to sneak past me." the light played off her eyes and I could see the soft glow of her two distinct eye colors. Like her eyes, the light reflected off her teeth as she smile and it clicked in my mind how much of a resemblance she hat to a Cheshire cat at the moment.

"Now who says I was trying to sneak past you? Maybe I was waiting for someone else. Have you been spying on me?" She jumped from her perch and softly landed on the floor below before crossing her arms over her chest and tilted her head back to look at me. I chuckled and shifted my weight to my cane as I starting leaning against it.

"I'm not a moron, Ramona, I know why you're here. But let me tell you, you're not getting your little paws on that diamond." I pointed towards her and she gave me a devilish smile.

"You want to bet?" she winked and casually strolled by me, playfully running her tail across the tip of my nose. I'd been around her enough to know what she was doing. If there was a prize that could bring in a few thousand dollars, she would try to distract me. Most of the time it didn't work, but sometimes it did. But this time it wouldn't work, I was getting that diamond.

"You're not getting that diamond, Ramona." I followed behind her, quickly catching up to her. It wasn't long before the only thing that separated me from the diamond was a long hallway, now clear of the laser security. Ramona and I gave quickly glances to each other, smiled, and bolted down the hallway. Since Ramona never wore shoes on her heists and thanks to the cleaning crew for waxing the floors, Ramona had a slight advantage on me. Her feet slid on the floors and to keep her from getting too far ahead, my cane snagged one of her belt loops and spun her around. It took her by surprise, causing her to loose her balance. She gripped onto my shirt to keep her from falling, but I ended up coming down with her. We didn't hit the floor, thanks to my arm stopping our fall, but we were pretty close. Our eyes grew wide when we both hear the hum of the security lasers turning back on. We were right in the middle of the hallway and completely surrounded by red lasers. We couldn't move more than an inch on any side, including below us, and that's when we realized how much of a sticky situation we were stuck in. We couldn't move, so we were stuck in our rather…awkward situation. Thankfully we were alone because if anyone were to walk in right now, even Bentley, they'd get the wrong idea of what was going on.

I was practically lying on top of her and we were pressed so close to each other someone couldn't slide a credit card between us. One of her arms was wrapped around my shoulder to keep her from falling and the other was twisted behind her, supporting some of her weight. She was bent backwards, like someone would be if they played Twister or doing the Matrix. I was hunched forward and had one arm underneath the arm she had on my shoulder. That was the paw that was touching the floor. The other was holding her waist up, keeping it pressed against my own. And I couldn't put her down or even pull away slightly because if I did, one of us would get a back full of burning laser. We were both in a wide stance when we fell and now our legs fit together like a puzzle. One of hers was wedged between mine and the same for me. It was like a puzzle; my leg, her leg, my leg, and finally her other leg. Our chests were mashed against each other and I could feel her heart pounding in her chest and mind was doing the same in my own chest. Despite the dark color of her fur, I could see her cheeks start to turn red from embarrassment and mine were probably doing the same. Our snouts were only millimeters from each other and I could both feel her breath and smell the mint from her breath. I could feel goose bumps forming on her skin and her fingertips, which had moved to my neck, were cold; a sign that she was either nervous, embarrassed, or both. We were silent, simply staring at each other in amazement as we stayed in our provocative situation. I had to admit, the numerous times I'd kissed or hugged her, I'd never been this close to her. I could actually see the individual strands of fun on her face and where grey faded to the natural black mask across her face and then finally fade back to gray as it progressed down her cheek.

"Sorry, Sly," Bentley's voice entered my ear after what seemed like a lifetime, "It seems the security system kicked back on. I'll see if I can shut them off again but you might just have to crawl your way out of there. If you do touch them they won't set off alarm but you'll be missing some fur."

"Great," I muttered as I kept Ramona pressed against me.

"What?" Ramona groaned. I chuckled nervously and thought of a way to break it to her.

"Well, I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that these won't set of any alarms. The bad news is in two parts. One, if you do happen to accidentally touch them, you'll get burned. And two, Bentley can't turn them off so we'll have to figure a way out ourselves," She groaned loudly and tossed her head back slightly, "You have any ideas?"

"Not really, but I do have a mirror in my back pocket. We can always redirect the lasers and create a path out here. I can't reach it; you'll have to get it."

"Where is it?" I wasn't too keen on fondling my way though her back pockets, but we were already in a jam so how could it possibly get any worse?

"Back right pocket, towards the bottom." I couldn't use my left arm to simply reach down and get it, it was supporting us. So, I had to use the one on her waist, which meant I'd have to reach around her and then invade her pockets. I nodded and started reaching around her. Unfortunately, my arms weren't quite long enough so I had to press her even closer to me. A shiver went both down our spines as our hips pressed together tightly. I couldn't see what I was doing, her body was in the way, and my fingers started to search for the mirror. She suddenly inhaled sharply and smacked me across the back of the head.

"In the pocket, in the pocket, Cooper!" I removed my fingers and moved down slightly. There was the pocket. I mentally smacked myself when I realized what I had been searching though.

"Sorry," I muttered before I finally pulled out the mirror. I put it on the floor next to her paw so she could reach it. She held on to my shoulders tightly as she opened the mirror with her free paw. It was a double sided mirror so it could move two sets of lasers instead of one.

"How are the lasers set up? In a grid or random or what?" she asked after finally opening the small hand-held mirror.

"In a grid. They seem to match up with the tiles on the floor. If you can just move the lasers so we can move all we have to do is jump from square to square and hope we don't hit the ones above or below us."

"Good, the sooner we get out of here the better." I chuckled and decided to make the best of our situation.

"Now Ramona," I said with a false hint of hurt in my voice, "I'm crushed to think that you're not enjoying yourself."

"Well I can tell you that bending over backwards underneath someone I try to out steal everyday, surrounded by lasers, and having my entire front side completely pressed against the front side my rival _isn't_ the way I had planned out my day." She wrapped her other arm around my neck as she tried to spit out her gum and stick it to the mirror so it could stay in place.

"Really, because I plan all my days like that. Now it looks like I'm going to need a new idea." She smacked the back of my head again and I chuckled. Ramona was always fun to mess with and given out current situation, she couldn't find something to hit me with.

"Alright," she said after a while, "let's see if I can get these lasers to move." She moved her mirror in various directions, looking for the right angle that will clear a path. She eventually found one that cleared a rather small path from the floor, allowing her to move. The lasers were set up in a grid on the floor, and then a new grid that matched the floor started about two feet up. Then the same grid two more feet and so on until it reached the ceiling.

"If you can get in that next section, we can stand and get out of this death trap." She nodded and started getting ready to crawling away.

"Sly, I swear if you even try to do anything in the next five minutes, I _will_ kill you when we get out of here." I chuckled again.

"I'll try to control myself, Mademoiselle." She shot me an annoyed glance and huffed.

"May I remind you that you are in _no_ position to play games?" she smirked herself and started crawling. It then dawned on me where her knee was and knowing her, she wouldn't hold back. And as I've learned from pervious experiences, she had a mighty powerful kick. She started crawling to the next section slowly, avoiding brushing against any other lasers. She suddenly stopped and groaned when the mirror fell to the side, cracking and letting the original laser grid reappear.

"How could this get any worse?" I chuckled and shrugged. She had only gotten halfway there when she stopped and was in an even worse position. Her knees were at my nose and half of her was in the next section. I could finally stand, so, I stood. I stood slowly, avoiding brushing against any lasers, and could feel the cramp in my back fade away. Now I had to get her standing before her arms finally gave out. I crouched over her and extended one of my arms to her. She gripped it quickly, to avoid falling, and I extended my other arm. She had to do this fast or she'd fall to the grid on the floor and the rest wouldn't be pretty. She gripped my arm fiercely, afraid of falling, and I started to slowly pull her forward and into a standing position. She smiled happily and finally, we were standing. Now all we had to do was crawl out of the lasers and go home. But instead of moving, we simply stood there. Like when we first had fallen on top of each other, we didn't say anything but started each other down. I gently and slowly pulled the few cobweb strands from her jet back hair and tucked her bangs behind her ear. She watched my every move and her gaze finally met mine when I placed my paws on her shoulders. We were still silent even as I leaned forward and kissed her. My paws moved across her small shoulders and slunk down her sides, finally resting on her hips. Our eyes were closed and our breathing was slow. She gently rubbed the back of my neck with her fingertips as we pulled apart. We nudged our noses together briefly before simply leaping through the squares of lasers. Finally, we jumped through the last square and stood in front of the diamond. She gasped as her tail brushed though a laser beam. We expect it to singe the fur and burn, but nothing happened. We shot each other glances and she brushed her tail though the light again. Like before, nothing happened to her tail. She was completely unharmed.

"I thought you said these lasers burned," she said before narrowing her eyes, "Cooper I swear if this was all some sort of stunt just to go through that," she was referring to our situation, "I don't know what I'll do but I will do something!" she pointed a finger at me and I shook my head.

"No! Bentley told me that they burned when you touched them," I turn on my earpiece and spoke, "Bentley, I thought you said these burned?" I heard the turtle laughing from the other side of the line.

"Now you know what it's like to be put in the awkward situation! The two of you are constantly putting me in situations and now it's you're your turn. That and you two need to learn to think on your toes instead of relying on me."

"I'm going to kill that turtle, Cooper!" she growled and stormed off down the hall, obviously embarrassed and overly angered, "And I know where he lives!" she shouted with the flick of her paw in the air. I chuckled then remembered the diamond I was here for in the first place. She had completely forgotten about it. Or at least I thought she had forgotten about it. I turned to open the case and collect the gem for myself when I noticed it was gone and Ramona's calling card was inside.

"Ramona!" I shouted behind her with a smile, "You little sneak!" she glanced back briefly and smirked. She shook her hips at me playfully and strolled around the corner. I smirked and rested against the edge of the display. I'd get that diamond back from Ramona soon enough. But first, I had a certain turtle to go after for putting me in an awkward, yet fun, situation.


End file.
